Eye Care of San Diego: Mission Hills — Attraction in San Diego

1.0 star rating 7/30/2020 If you're reading the overwhelming bad reviews here, thank goodness you will not make the same mistake me and many others have made. It started with me being called back to an examining area where the technician began taking photos of my eyes. She asked me which eye the cataract was in. I said I had no cataract and was there for corneal eye cancer. She continued with some other measurements and then asked me when my last cataract surgery was. I said I'd never had one. Another assistant showed up and asked me my name. Turns out they thought I was another patient. I'm then escorted back to Dr. Bokosky's exam room. He was pacing the hallway outside the room, talking in an irritated way to a patient on his cell phone. He said, "Take it or leave it, this is when I can see you. I don't have time for this, I'm over booked and exhausted". That is an exact quote. Then he marches in, says hello without looking at me and goes straight to the computer screen and begins asking me about cataracts. I tell him I don't have any and what I'm there for is corneal cancer. He steps back and angrily waves at the nurse "correct this damed screen". Again, wrong patient. He's not wearing a mask, nor did he wash his hands and he starts to examine me. He mumbles several things I don't understand to the nurse taking notes. She seems to struggle also with understanding him and typing quickly enough to capture everything. Dr. B then says to me "We need to remove that right away. Can you come in tomorrow for surgery?". Nurse says "Oh, we can't get insurance approval that quickly". Dr. asks me "who's your insurance provider? I tell him and he says "I hate (them) they owe me money! They never pay me!". Nurse puts numbing drops in my eyes. There's a yellow ring around the cap. Then Dr. puts dilating drops in my eyes. There's a red ring around the cap. They all leave the room. As I wait for dilation, Dr. Bokosky paces in hallway, voicing demands to nursing staff, mumbling. He's agitated and nervous. I begin to wonder how steady his hands are during surgery. Then nurse comes back into the room and says she's going to administer dilating drops, I told her the doctor already administered them. She disagreed. I told her they were the bottle with the red ring around the cap. She was frustrated and left the room.

Then Dr. Bokosky comes back in looks at my eyes more and tells the staff to schedule me for surgery. I ask him where the surgery will be done. He says in his surgical center. He doesn't like Scripps hospital -"they owe me money". He mumbles more to nurse who's trying to capture what he's said. He leaves room after answering a few questions. I ask him if I need any pre-ops done (bloodwork, ekg, etc). He says, "This IS your pre-op exam". He holds a stethoscope to my chest for one second, to my back, doesn't ask me to breathe in or out. Strange.

Cara, the office manager comes in. She is very compassionate. I feel better. She says they will "put a stat on my surgical request to my insurance".

I'm then escorted back to Valentina to fill out forms. I notice the patient rights and responsibilities form is lopsided in favor of the doctor. Basically, I have no rights. Then she says the doctor uses a surgical glue during the procedure. I'm told insurance doesn't cover it and she can collect my $175.00 now. I told her I thought it should be covered and would work with my insurance. I asked if there were any other out-of-pocket charges and she said no. I'm given a 2 pm surgery time the following week. Valentina says "the time may change". I told her I live 4 hours away and need 24-hours notice of any change and she says "No problem".

There's a lot more but it's mostly insurance related and I want to keep this on point. Because I tried to be my own advocate and questioned my own health care they cancelled my surgery less than 24 hours before! mEyeEye Care.Care of San Diego. problems time if I wanted it. I politely declined and said...

I rarely leave reviews, but I think my experience yesterday is worth sharing.

I had an appointment at 3:00 p.m. When I arrived I was asked to fill out a relatively extensive questionnaire/new patient paperwork, which included all my insurance information that I had given over the phone the prior day as well as had gone over with the staff upon my arrival.

Around 3:10 p.m. I was taken to a back exam room, given preliminary tests, and asked a series of questions which matched the questions I had just answered in the new patient paperwork I had completed upon arrival. I was then told that the doctor was not ready for me and that they needed the exam room for another patient. I was walked back out to the lobby and told to wait.

Approximately an hour later (4:10 p.m.) I asked the receptionist if there was an estimate as to when I would see the doctor as my appointment was scheduled at 3:00 p.m. She informed me that the doctor was running late and that it could be another 40 minutes. Shocked I said, you mean almost two hours late? The receptionist said she really wasn’t sure. I asked if there was someone else I could speak to. The next person informed me that it would like be another 20 minutes.

Around 4:35/4:40 p.m. I was taken back to see the doctor. The doctor came in to introduce herself and spoke to me for approximately 30 seconds before a nurse (or health tech) came in and asked the doctor if a patient in the room next door could leave. After a few verbal exchanges the doctor and nurse left my exam room to further discuss. A nurse remained in my room and did not say anything. Finally, the doctor came in and did my exam. By the time she was done, I was asked to use the staff exit in the back as they had locked up the office.

I really have no words for how disappointing the experience was. I was given little to no apology, no updates or information along the way, and was stuck for nearly two hours (much longer than I had informed my place of work). It didn’t help that the office felt quite...

I did not have a good experience with this eye doctor. First, there was a horrible smell in the waiting room, and I had to wait 20 minutes past my appointment time to be seen. Next, the doctor/nurse/technicians never introduced themselves as they were running tests on me, so I had no idea who was who. My natural vision is so poor that I cannot recognize faces without glasses or contacts, so I was appalled that no one told me their name or title. I kept being asked if I saw the doctor yet and I kept saying “I don’t know - I can’t see and no one is introducing themselves.” When testing my vision with letters on a screen, the lights were left on and the door was left open for part of the tests. This made it harder to see the screen, so I don’t trust the results. Every time I’ve done this test in the past, it has been in a dark room. Further, two of the machines were broken so they couldn’t run some tests on me. Next, they gave me eye dilating drops and took me outside in the bright sunlight without sunglasses, which is dangerous and uncomfortable. The eyeglasses department was too busy to see me, so I was asked to wait in another bright room with dilated eyes which was painful. I was not given sunglasses until I reminded them that my eyes were dilated and I was supposed to be given sunglasses. While I was waiting, I overheard another patient discussing their medical history to an employee because the employee didn’t close the door. I’m not sure if that’s a HIPAA violation or not, but it is extremely rude to that patient. They couldn’t confirm my benefits on the day of the appointment because their system was down, so they promised they’d call me back the next day, and they did not. I called back every business day for 3 days, and each time I was sent to voicemail and I was never called back. I finally received a call back a week later after I complained on their website and was able to...